“Lapping a spot of dry blood on his sleeve”

Before leaving the diary of the mysterious Capt. Smythe, I must highlight a passage that Frank Moore quoted from that document in 1860.

Smythe was a British army officer stationed around New York. In his entry for 8 Nov 1778, he wrote:

This afternoon a party of our horse brought in two rebel privates from Powles Hook. One of them is very intelligent and communicative; but the other is the most whimsical tony I ever have seen. Wherever he goes, he carries with him a large gray cat, which he says came into the rebel camp on the night after the battle at Freehold Meeting-House [better known as Monmouth], and which he first discovered lapping a spot of dry blood on his sleeve, as he lay on his arms expecting another dash at the British. His affection for the cat is as wonderful as hers is for him, for they are inseparable. He says if we don’t allow him extra rations for his cat, he shall be obliged to allow them out of his own.

A New Complete English Dictionary from 1760 defines “jack-pudding” as “a tony; a merry andrew”—all types of fools.

[Portrait above by Jean-Baptiste Perronneau in 1747, as featured here.]